on the natural
rights of men. In the patriarchal age, the most natural, the most
feasible, and perhaps the most beneficial form of government was by the
head of the family. His power by the law of nature, and the necessity of
the case, extended without any other limit than the general principles
of morals, over his children, and in the absence of other regular
authority, would not terminate when the children arrived at a particular
age, but be continued during life. He was the natural umpire between his
adult offspring, he was their lawgiver and leader. His authority would
naturally extend over his more remote descendants, as they continued to
increase, and on his death, might devolve on the next oldest of the
family. There is surely nothing in this mode of constituting society
which is necessarily immoral. If found to be conducive to the general
good, it might be indefinitely continued. It would not suffice to render
its abrogation obligatory, to say that all men are born free and equal;
that the youth of twenty-one had as good a right to have a voice in the
affairs of the family as the aged patriarch; that the right of
self-government is indefeasible, etc. Unless it could be shown that the
great end of society was not attainable by this mode of organization,
and that it would be more securely promoted by some other, it would be
an immorality to require or to effect the change. And if a change
became, in the course of time, obviously desirable, its nature and
extent would be questions to be determined by the peculiar circumstances
of the case, and not by the rule of abstract rights. Under some
circumstances it might be requisite to confine the legislative power to
a single individual; under others to the hands of a few; and under
others to commit it to the whole community. It would be absurd to
maintain, on the ground of the natural equality of men, that a horde of
ignorant and vicious savages, should be organized as a pure democracy,
if experience taught that such a form of government was destructive to
themselves and others. These different modes of constituting civil
society are not necessarily either just or unjust, but become the one or
the other according to circumstances; and their morality is not
determined by the degree in which they encroach upon the natural rights
of men, but on the degree in which they promote or retard the progress
of human happiness and virtue. In this country we believe that the
general g